The present invention relates to an electronic device and a method of communication for performing communications securely using bridging medium.
Recently in communications between household electronic devices (referred to as “household devices” hereinbelow) and electronic devices on an outside network (referred to as “outside devices” hereinbelow), cables such as twist pair cable or USB cable are often used as means for connecting a household device to an outside network. In such cases, due to the labor and costs required for cable installation work into a household, application for a communication line and so on, individual household devices are not directly connected to an outside network, but rather a gateway alone is connected to the outside network. As a result, a form is taken in which individual household devices are connected to the outside network via a gateway.
Since data received by a household device invariably pass through the gateway, security functions such as a virus check function, encryption/validation function, and packet filtering function are integrated in the gateway, thereby lightening the function installation load on the individual household device.
In technology such as that described above, when the data of an outside device are stored in bridging medium, whereupon the bridging medium are brought into the household and the data in the bridging medium are stored in the household device, the data are stored in the household device without passing through a gateway. Thus, since the security functions of the gateway do not operate, communication cannot be performed securely. If, in this case, the security functions are installed in the individual household devices or bridging medium, this problem can be solved. In so doing, however, the cost of household devices and bridging medium increases and communication delays in the system occur.